12 Movies Only On VHS That Are Still Worth Watching

When we talk about lost films, most people immediately think of silent movies, cinema on nitrate that either went up in flames or was in the hands of studios who didn't see the value in preserving it. Although we've come a long way in terms of film preservation since then, there are still plenty of films from the second half of the 20th century that may not be technically "lost," but are nearly impossible to track down and actually watch. They may have been put out on comparatively low-quality VHS back in the day, but not a peep since then — these films never got a DVD or Blu-ray release, and aren't available on any of the streaming services. 

If you're lucky, you might be able to find a grainy, unsanctioned VHS transfer on an unauthorized YouTube account, but even then, there's a lack of permanency, since they could be taken down for copyright infringement anytime. The saddest thing about all of this is that most of these movies aren't just amateur productions: Many feature notable actors and some were even released by major production studios in their day. Here are just a few of the forgotten films that are still worth watching — if you can get your hands on them, that is.

What if we were to tell you that there's a movie floating out there in the ether that stars a post-"Caddyshack" Bill Murray and Zach Galligan the same year that he starred in his Christmas megahit "Gremlins" — but there's no way for you to watch it?

"Nothing Lasts Forever" was a sci-fi comedy from MGM that featured a pretty impressive cast and crew: In addition to Murray and Galligan, Dan Aykroyd and Sam Jaffe were on board, Howard Shore ("Lord of the Rings") wrote the score, and it was produced by "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels. But despite this, MGM pulled the theatrical release of "Nothing Lasts Forever" just weeks before it was scheduled to premiere. After that, the film functionally disappeared, only popping up occasionally on European television and bootleg VHS tapes. 

It was only when the 2000s rolled around that there was renewed interest in actually watching this modern-day lost film. "Nothing Lasts Forever" was screened at a handful of festivals and was briefly uploaded to YouTube before being taken back down almost immediately. Now that there's newfound appreciation for the film, many fans hope that it will at long last earn itself a Blu-ray release, although we're not getting our hopes up quite yet.

You might think there is not a single frame of archival footage of The Beatles that isn't available to the public — but you would be wrong. In 1970, Michael Lindsay-Hogg created the documentary "Let It Be," which detailed the production of the album of the same name and included an extended sequence of The Beatles' famous rooftop concert. The film's initial release accompanied the earthshaking news that The Beatles were breaking up, and it does feature — amongst other things — shades of tension that foreshadowed the iconic band's eventual dissolution.

After the 1980s, when it was released on VHS and Laserdisc, "Let It Be" largely faded into obscurity. There were efforts to resurrect it with a new DVD or Blu-ray release over the years, but these plans never seemed to pan out, and to this day, the original film is only available (officially, of course, with numerous bootlegs abound) on VHS. Lindsay-Hogg's work was given new life by Peter Jackson, however, who incorporated much of his original unused footage from the documentary for his sprawling, if flawed, 2021 series "The Beatles: Get Back."

UPDATE: Not long after this was published, "Let It Be" was announced to be coming to Disney+.

Part of the point of the Academy Awards, aside from rewarding talent, is to mark out which films are most worthy of remembrance. Aside from the first few years of Oscars history, there are very few nominated films that have become almost impossible to track down. But "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," which was nominated in 1978 for best supporting actor and best cinematography, is one of them. Starring Diane Keaton and Richard Gere, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" revolves around a sexually adventurous Chicago schoolteacher (Keaton), her various relationships, and her eventual murder in New York City (loosely based on the real-life case of Roseann Quinn). 

In the years since it first hit theaters, it only ever came out on VHS and Laserdisc in the U.S., a DVD or Blu-ray release apparently hampered by the large number of hit songs featured in the film that would cost a fortune to license. It's not impossible to get a hold of — it was released on DVD in Australia in 2020, although the quality of the transfer is somewhat dubious — but considering the names attached to "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" and the success it earned back in 1977 it's surprising that it hasn't been made more available for audiences.

In the 1950s, teenagers stepped out onto the scene as their own demographic, with money to spend and an identity of their own for the first time. As a result, American cinema got plenty of teen horror films that were designed to market to their specific target audiences, many of which famously followed the "I Was a Teenage ..." naming convention. "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" was arguably the first of these, starring Michael Landon (who many may recognize from "Little House on the Prairie") as Tony Rivers, a high-school hooligan who has a slight problem with lycanthropy, as the title suggests.

Although it was a massive box-office success for its distribution company, American International Pictures, the glut of other teen films released in its wake diluted its pop cultural impact. There are unsanctioned DVD transfers of "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" floating around out there, but these are largely VHS quality, and the film has yet to receive an official release, let alone one that has been restored.

Imagine, if you will, a movie starring James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif as two strangers in a Western horror anthology who trade stories by a campfire. Now imagine a world in which that movie doesn't have a DVD or Blu-ray release. Sounds like a nightmare, yes? Bad news, friends: It's the world we live in.

Or at least, the world some of us live in. There is a German DVD release of "Grim Prairie Tales" (which, frankly, deserves more love just for its name alone), but it's a pretty low-quality transfer and may not play in American DVD players. For the rest of us, we have to settle for bootleg copies and extremely grainy YouTube uploads that can get taken down at any time. Injustice, thy name is "Grim Prairie Tales." We can only hope that one day, a wider release will get more eyes on this flawed but extremely unique horror project.

Alright, so this is less of a traditional theatrical release as it is an experiment in visual arts, but it's still wild that it's not more widely accessible. "The Amazing Mr. Bickford" is a collaboration between musician Frank Zappa and claymation artist Bruce Bickford, combining songs composed by the former with the trippy animated creations of the latter. It was given a VHS release in 1989 (just a few years before Zappa's death), but nothing has come out since, despite its popularity among Zappa enthusiasts. 

The good news? Both the Internet Archive and shady sources on YouTube have the avant-garde animated film available online (clocking in at just 52 minutes), so you don't have to bust out your VCR just yet. With post-modern imagery and a fantastic soundtrack, "The Amazing Mr. Bickford" is a feast for both the eyes and the ears — it's worth spending an hour on even if it's not quite your thing.

A cheesy, low-budget '90s action film, "Ballistic" stars Marjean Holden as Jesse, a cop who goes on a journey of revenge after her partner is murdered alongside a witness in protective custody. The fight sequences are the best part of the movie, and really the biggest argument for why you should check it out (that plus the presence of action stars like the late, great Richard Roundtree and Michael Jai White). In a landscape filled with Jean-Claude Van Dammes and Steven Seagals, it's refreshing that "Ballistic" revolves around a female action star for a change, and Holden does a good job in the lead role as her character is faced with the sexist attitudes of even her own coworkers.

"Ballistic" was released direct-to-video in 1995, a common enough trajectory for lower-budget action films in the '90s, when viewers were seemingly more likely to rent them from Blockbuster rather than see them in a theater. But after that, "Ballistic" never received another release, and now if you want to watch it, you have to settle for blurry bootleg versions.

Two aliens descend upon planet Earth. One is a good guy, one is a bad guy, but the people of Earth have no idea which is which. This is the basic premise of the 1990 sci-fi film "Peacemaker" (not to be confused with the 1997 film starring George Clooney or the DC Comics TV series starring John Cena), and as humans get pulled into their cat-and-mouse game, things only get more complicated. Although it fits squarely into the science fiction genre, it almost has a Western feel to its narrative, revolving around a lawman and an outlaw at odds with one another.

"Peacemaker" is a fun movie, and for the most part, it matches the quality level of other '90s sci-fi adventures that are much better remembered. Alas, "Peacemaker" was relegated to the dustbin of history, only receiving a VHS release back in the 1990s. Frankly, it deserves better. Still, would-be viewers can easily track down this film to watch — albeit not with the clean, pristine images of a DVD or Blu-ray restoration.

For those of you who are up to date on '90s martial artists turned actors, the star of "Automatic" should need no introduction. Olivier Gruner began his career as a kickboxer before transitioning to the silver screen in the late '80s, although acting was never high up on his list of talents. He stars as J269, an android servant who causes something of a stir when he intervenes in an assault by his boss on a young woman at their corporate headquarters, killing the would-be rapist. 

To prevent a scandal, the company's CEO sends in robot troops to eliminate J269 and Nora (Daphne Ashbrook), the woman now under his protection. What follows is a siege thriller with massive shades of "Die Hard," which had come out two years earlier and was undoubtedly an inspiration for "Automatic." This is actually one of Gruner's better films, although anyone attempting to watch it these days will need a pair of reading glasses — all the uploads of it you can find online are almost impossibly dark and low quality. 

Remember how weird the romantic arc in "Big" was, with a grown woman falling in love with a 13-year-old boy in a grown man's body? Well, "14 Going on 30" offers similar vibes, only the romance takes on center stage and is presented as though it isn't creepy. Danny (Gabriel Olds and Steven Eckholdt) is a 14-year-old boy with such a massive crush on his beautiful teacher Miss Noble (Daphne Ashbrook) that he uses his nerdy best friend's aging machine to become older. As a 30-year-old man, he thinks, he will have a much better chance of wooing her. And as the film unfolds, he does just that. That's ... romantic, right?

"14 Going on 30" originally aired as a television movie on ABC, before being released on the VHS market by Walt Disney Home Video. From there, it has faded into obscurity, overshadowed by "Big," which featured some wild Tom Hanks improv, and the silly but charming "13 Going on 30," and it was never granted a DVD release. But "14 Going on 30" is responsible for one of the genre's biggest Mandela effects. Some people swear that they remember "Big" ending with Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) reverting to her 12-year-old self to be with Josh, but they may actually be thinking of the ending of this film. 

The charm of "Alien Beach Party Massacre" is all in the title. A play on the beach movies of the 1960s, it revolves around a group of aliens who steal a high-powered space weapon and then promptly crash land on Earth. The sole survivor attempts to find the weapon in the wreckage, only to discover that it's being used as a volleyball by surfers on a sunny California beach nearby. Oops.

"Alien Beach Party Massacre" is a ridiculous film, made for about $5.00 and some pocket lint, but if you give into its quirkiness, you might find something to enjoy. Tracking it down to watch it in the first place, however, is the taller task. It only ever received a VHS release, so would-be fans may have to brave a grainy video transfer if they want to check it out. Still, the poor video quality might actually add to the cheap, old-school vibe "Alien Beach Party Massacre" cultivates.

"Phantom of the Ritz," as you might gather from the title, is a play on the classic "Phantom of the Opera," which also inspired the ending of Tim Burton's "Batman." Only instead of a 19th-century Parisian opera house, our misunderstood loner is squatting in the bowels of an abandoned movie theater after suffering severe burns in a drag race in the 1950s. For the most part, he's perfectly satisfied with his unconventional digs. That is, until someone buys the theater, intent on turning it into a 1950s-themed music venue and inadvertently disrupting the life of its unknown inhabitant. So he, you know, goes on a little bit of a killing spree.

Good luck watching this forgotten beauty, though. After coming out on VHS, it essentially disappeared. And unlike many of the other films on this list, there's not even a garbage print of it available from an illegitimate source on YouTube. To watch "Phantom of the Ritz," you might actually have to track down the VHS or Laserdisc print of the film.